May 28 07
Wonderful Weekend!
I had a really great long weekend here in North Carolina. My friend Peggy drove up to NC from Florida and we both got to attend the North Carolina Quilt Symposium in Mars Hill, NC, just north of Asheville. (If you’ve never visited western NC, this is a great destination; beautiful mountain views everywhere, kind people, and a very nurturing location for artists. I could go on and on about what a great area this is, but I digress!) The symposium started off with a bang for me, because the very first night I found out that my newest quilt, Leaf Cycles V, had won both Best of Show and Best Free Motion Machine Work!
I literally finished this quilt the night before I had to ship it, so there was no time to take any pictures, but I snapped a few today. It measures 58 in Wide x 56 in High and is really another fun exercise messing around with color and leaf shapes:
I won’t bore you with more pix of this quilt because I think I posted some as I was first quilting it, but know that I am feeling good about having this quilt back home. The colors are yumalicious!
Part 2 of the great weekend was the quilt symposium. It had been a long time since I had gotten to take a class, and I took 2 very helpful classes. The first class was by Judy Simmons. If you have the opportunity to take one of her classes, do it! The teaching was clear, concise, and fun and she is a wealth of information on really cool techniques to add interest and texture to your quilts. We learned how to make silk leaves that are incredibly realistic:
Do these leaves look dimensional? They should and the cool part is that you can attach them to quilt part-way; like with a clear monofilament thread along just a few of the vein lines, so that the edges stick up. Here are a few better pix of individual leaves:
Now check out this close up of part of the leaf and you’ll REALLY appreciate the realism of these fabric leaves:
Have you ever seen home-made fabric leaves with such realistic blemishes and color variegations?! We burned the edges with a wood burning tool, but you can use the creative burning tool I posted about before. Notice that there are holes burned within the body of the leaf itself. The edges of the silk are all sealed by the burning, so there’s no need to “finish” them further with any stitching!We even learned how to fuse a narrow 32 gauge wire in between the top and bottom of the leaves so we could bend them. This stuff is way-cool!
The next day I took a 3 hour workshop with Mickey Dupre. I had never heard of her before but man, was I glad I took this class! It was a no-sew workshop on making color choices and it was GREAT!! I left there feeling an intense need to piece a quilt, which I actually did today! I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the stimulation that comes from taking a class and I need to do this more often!!
I just love your Leaf Cycles V quilt, and want to say that I for one would not have minded more pics. (I just recently found this site so I missed the others you posted while quilting it.) I sure enjoyed the ones posted.
Also, the other leaves are fantastic! I have never seen a leaf look so real!
Rose
Those silk leaves are just beautiful! May i ask how you got the veins so fine? x x x
So sorry to bother you again, but your reply went into my spam box and got deleted.I was wondering if you could re send the email so i know how you got such beautiful veining in those leaves. Merry Christmas x x x